Kate Possin, PhD, is a professor in residence in the Department of Neurology at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center and the Global Brain Health Institute within the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. She holds the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Endowed Professorship and is the Clinical Core Lead for the UCSF Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Dr. Possin’s research program is dedicated to improving the detection, diagnosis, and care of people living with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and related disorders.
Dr. Possin directs the Care Ecosystem, a telephone-based collaborative care model for people with dementia and their caregivers. This program provides education and support, helping families navigate challenging medical, financial, and behavioral issues, and improves the quality of life for patients while reducing caregiver stress and emergency-related healthcare costs. Her team collaborates with health systems and policy leaders to advance scalable and sustainable dementia care.
Dr. Possin is also focused on improving the early detection and diagnosis of cognitive disorders. She developed tablet-based cognitive assessments on the TabCAT platform, which are designed for ease of use in everyday clinical and research settings. These assessments use principles from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology to identify early signs of neurodegenerative diseases. TabCAT has been translated into over 20 languages and is used in more than 150 studies across 30 countries, with increasing use to enhance diagnosis in primary care settings.
Dr. Possin earned her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California, San Diego, where she investigated cognitive changes associated with Parkinson’s disease. She completed her internship and postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF and joined the Fein Memory and Aging Center in 2006. Dr. Possin’s work bridges science, practice, and policy to address gaps in dementia care, with a focus on improving outcomes for patients and families.